Macbooks have been nice since M1 era, but the Intel Macbooks between years 2013-2020 were hardly robust. My partner's 2014 MBP Retina's screen plastic film started peeling off, which was a known design flaw of those models. Later the ones with butterfly keyboard were notoriously unreliable, with keys getting stuck.
Personally I haven't had much trouble with Linux on modern Thinkpads. Very little to configure manually, as long as you pick the right distro. Even a Dell laptop at work with Linux isn't causing me much OS-related issues, although battery life sucks.
I would suggest creating sanctions that hurt those in power, meaning mainly old bearded men who probably don't play Minecraft. Ordinary people have no power to change anything over there, they get shot if they try.
Iran is one of those dictatorships where the majority of the population already dislikes (or plain hates) the government, as we have seen in many demonstrations that have been extinguished through use of extreme violence by the regime.
Making life more difficult for ordinary Iranians isn't going to change anything as long as the army and revolutionary guard stay loyal to the criminals in power.
Human intelligence is definitely multilayered, and different parts of brain are known to be responsible for different types of processing.
Personally I was born with a disability that makes me suck at motor skills, spatial learning and understanding most forms of mathematics, but somehow I'm still decent at programming, and significantly better than average at reading and writing - all of which LLMs can do quite well compared to its mathematics and logic skills.
What about native Germans though? At least here in Finland plenty of natives move away from the capital to smaller bordering towns once they start a family. Advantages are reduced cost of living, and improved safety & schools.
It's not about where people want to live, but where most jobs are. Historically rapid urbanization started with industrialization, which reduced jobs in countryside, and created news mostly in urban areas.
It seems South Koreans in aren't comfortable with having kids in general. It's much better to dedicate your life to making shareholders of Samsung, or some other soulless megacorporation richer. That's how you get one of the world's lowest birth rates.
Middle class 15-20 years ago was able to buy, or even finance building of their own houses. How many poor you know who do that?
Only thing that has really improved is access to cheap Made in China goods, and perhaps plane tickets. But actual necessities like housing are becoming more and more unaffordable.
Well, the planet would be better off without Chinese middle class and elite flying around and buying stuff. Countries that are full of poor "uneducated farmers" tend to have much lower carbon footprint than richer ones, even with the higher birth rates. Despite its admirable investments in reneweable tech, China still keeps building new coal plants as well.
Good, the world doesn't need that many liberal arts graduates. Quality over quantity should be the focus in fields where there aren't that many employment opportunities and potential for successful entrepreneurship.
Besides, nothing prevents one from pursuing a career in most liberal arts without a degree, assuming you don't want to be a researcher. You can always be a nurse or an engineer with arts related side-job, but doing it the other way around is hard.
But why should educational instutions care? Education is a business, students are the customers (or in countries with state-funded education, the government). If AI helps people graduate faster, that's more money to the institutions, less effort to the students, and nice statistics for the governments.
At least in my country most degrees aren't worth much anyway, they just open you doors to internships where you really learn stuff. AI isn't going to make the situation any worse.
Yep, proper tires (ideally studded), reasonable speed and avoiding sudden movements is all there is to driving in snowy/icy conditions. Not doing any of these three things can get you into trouble.
Here in Finland statistically the most deadly months in traffic are in summer, when there's no snow or ice, and weather conditions are generally good. Holidays and great weather encourage people to drive fast, stay awake late, and drink alcohol.
Rural area isn't bad if you find the right place, hobbies and a proper house. Lots of opportunities for outdoor activities, such as gardening and trekking, which also help keep you healthy.
Yes, OP should look at something from 2005, or original Raspberry pi. I've used a 2011 Thinkpad for web development with IntelliJ IDE, no major issues.
I agree. I find it highly pointless to spend one's leisure time learning new tech stacks, working on hobby projects just so that you can show them to an employer. Finding actual real-world problems that you care about to solve, that's way more satisfying. Intrinsic motivation beats extrinsic motivation.
Yeah, I think buying an used iPhone is the best value for money at this point. Depending on the model you get the same or more years of support than from new Android for similar price. The iOS UX is so smooth I had zero trouble switching from Android to iOS, even though I had never touched an iPhone before.
I'll reconsider Android phone only when manufacturers start providing as many years of software support as Apple does. Planned, premature obscolence is unethical and sucks.
Old Thinkpads are at least equally durable, though not sure about the newest generation. Been using a T520 from 2011 for a few years with Linux, no problems.
Macbooks are great if you get a model without some serious design fault - like screen protection peeling off, or butterly keyboard breaking.
Personally I haven't had much trouble with Linux on modern Thinkpads. Very little to configure manually, as long as you pick the right distro. Even a Dell laptop at work with Linux isn't causing me much OS-related issues, although battery life sucks.